The military camp in Jinling City of the Guards is where a large number of Guards troops are stationed, and it is also the headquarters of the Guards, and at this time, the headquarters of the Guards ushered in a batch of special equipment, and these equipment are the first flintlock pistols produced in small batches in the Tang Dynasty!

Since the last time Li Xuan inspected the Jiangnan Arsenal and watched the live ammunition test of the flintlock pistol, it was determined on the spot that the flintlock pistol was the next generation of standard rifles of the Tang Navy Army.

And named the five-year rifle!

This five-year rifle, the original model was the same rifle specially developed for infantry, and later the Royal Institute of Technology and a number of arsenals of the Ministry of Industry will work with the military to develop different rifles for different arms and use environments, including cavalry rifles and naval rifles.

However, that was not the point, the point was that after it was determined that the five-year rifle would become the new generation of standard rifles, the Guards relied on their unique advantages to be the first batch of flintlock muskets in trial production.

Because the Guards belong to the Royal Guard, all kinds of funds and even the supply of firearms are given priority, and they also give priority to all kinds of new equipment, such as the previous nine-pound artillery, heavy howitzers, and plate armor, in fact, the Guards are the first large-scale equipment, and then it is the turn of the army and navy.

The same was true of the flintlock pistols this time, even if the army and navy had placed orders, but the first batch of flintlock pistols that had just been produced was about 300 pieces, but they were delivered to the Guards without any accidents.

The Third Infantry Battalion of the Guards Army also became the first large-scale unit equipped with flintlock muskets in the entire Tang Army, and even in all armies around the world.

Three hundred flintlock muskets were naturally far from enough for a large Guards infantry battalion, just enough to equip two infantry units.

Today, it is the day when the two infantry units of the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Guards Army are equipped with flintlock muskets, and the soldiers are still a little unaccustomed to this flintlock pistol after getting it, because the operation method is completely different from the previous arquebus.

So after getting the flintlock pistol, the first thing I did was to do a lot of new training, and at the same time conduct various tests in the training.

This kind of test, that is, the actual combat test, finds problems in actual use, and then feeds back the problems to the Ministry of Industry, which then adjusts and improves the weapons and equipment according to the reaction of the troops.

Because to a certain extent, the Guards also undertook the actual combat testing of various new equipment.

After the initial training, the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the Guards Army carried out training and research on the new application tactics of flintlock muskets.

Although flintlock pistols are still relatively rare, the Guards have carried out a lot of research in order to make better use of some of the advantages of flintlock pistols and apply them to new tactics.

After several days of testing, the Guards found that equipped with flintlock muskets, the queue of musketeers could be reduced from six columns to three rows.

Simplified to three platoons, an infantry squad can concentrate more dense firepower within the width of the unit!

At the same time, with faster reloading, the combat effectiveness of a musket team of the same number can be more than doubled with the use of flintlock muskets!

And there is another feature, that is, when equipped with flintlock pistols, the musketeers are more closely lined up and more resistant to shocks, which is enough to do without the need for spearmen to protect.

In a simulated confrontation organized by the Guards, all of them were composed of flintlock gunners, and the 3rd Infantry Battalion, which completely abandoned spearmen, sword and shield men, and archers, almost completely suppressed the 2nd Infantry Battalion, which was still equipped with traditional arquebuses, spears, and sword shields.

Moreover, the heavy armor spearmen, sword and shield bearers, and the like in the 2nd Infantry Battalion were of little use, because they could not break through the fire blockade of almost a thousand flintlock muskets.

However, according to the tests, the fourteen mm caliber flintlock pistol did not have good penetration for heavy plate armor, and for this, the Guards did not hesitate to propose that they needed a more powerful flintlock pistol!

At the same time, it was also suggested that since they were all planning to abandon the spear and use pure fire to kill, it would be possible to shorten the barrel to ensure more convenient reloading, increase the reloading speed, well, reduce costs by the way.

The Royal Institute of Technology quickly replied to the many questions that the Guards equipment test opposed, and there was no problem at all with increasing the caliber, and it didn't take them a few days to come up with an 18 mm flintlock pistol design, and when the prototype gun was tested, all the armor, including those heavy plate armor, was all taken down by this 18 mm flintlock pistol!

As for shortening the barrel design, they also said that they could, but after shortening the barrel, the length of the musket will become shorter, which will have a certain impact on hand-to-hand combat.

The Ministry of Industry also replied quickly, there was no problem with production, there was no problem with the production of large-caliber flintlock pistols, and there was no problem with shortening the barrel, because they had produced heavy arquebuses before, and also produced short-barreled arquebuses used by cavalry and navy.

According to the results of the actual use test of the Guards, Li Xuan personally issued a holy decree that in addition to the special nature of the troops such as honor guards and personal guards, all the main infantry battalions of the Guards will be completely withdrawn from cold weapons in the future, and they will all be converted into flintlock guns!

The army also quickly followed, although they had not yet obtained a large number of flintlock guns, but they had also obtained nearly a hundred flintlock pistols for testing, and the results of the test were similar to those of the Guards.

This led to the fact that the Privy Council Training Department issued the latest instructions to several new battalions and supplementary brigades, and in the future, except for special needs, the training of spearmen was stopped, and the spearmen were partly changed to musketeers.

At the same time, the army also reorganized the 9th Infantry Division and the 10th Infantry Division that were being organized, directly interrupting the training of spearmen units, but changing to musketeers for training, and if nothing else, these two units will also become the first pure musket unit of the Tang Army.

However, due to the large scale of the army, and the production of flintlock muskets is estimated to be unable to keep up for a while, the army is still relatively cautious, and many new battalions and supplementary brigades are still training spearmen to replenish.

In addition, many of the existing main forces did not have a brainstorm to let them directly adapt, but planned to come gradually.

The scale of the army is huge, and it is naturally different from the side of the Guards, the total strength of the Guards is only more than 10,000 people, and it is said that a comprehensive change of equipment is a comprehensive change of equipment, but the army side is not only huge, but also many troops are still undertaking combat missions, and they cannot easily move.

But in any case, the Datang Army has now officially entered the era of flintlock pistols, as for when the full refitting will be completed, it depends on the production of flintlock pistols on the side of the Ministry of Industry.

After receiving a large number of orders for flintlock pistols from the Guard, Army, and Navy, and at the same time canceling almost all orders for arquebuses, the arsenal on the Ministry of Industry also began to fully switch to the production of flintlock pistols.

At this time, some of the special advantages of the five-year rifle are reflected, this rifle, and the original arquebus is almost not much different, except for the bolt, the other parts are almost the same, and this greatly reduces the difficulty of changing production.

After switching to flintlock pistols, many branches of the arsenal were able to continue producing these parts without stopping production, and the only major changes needed to be made was to build the bolt.

The most difficult thing to build a bolt is spring steel, and the production of spring steel is not the task of the major arsenals, this is the task of the steel plant, after the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant is put into operation, the main task is the large-scale production of this spring steel.

At the same time, the production process and even the process of spring steel are extremely secret, and the spring steel produced will be directly processed into springs used in flintlock pistols, and it is forbidden to sell this spring steel to the outside world, and then the whole process will be escorted by the army and navy to major arsenals for assembly.

This is to ensure that the technology of spring steel does not leak and prevent a large number of finished products from leaking.

Moreover, even if Li Xuan knew that this spring steel could be applied in many fields, these applications were not worth mentioning compared to maintaining the advantages of weapons.

Anyway, Li Xuan didn't plan to leak the technology of spring steel in the past few years, and he didn't even sell the finished product, but he wanted to see if the Ming Dynasty could imitate the flintlock pistol this time.

The defense-related enterprises of the entire Tang Dynasty are running at the same time, and the power is quite huge, all kinds of machinery and equipment, and raw materials are given priority supply, only half a month later, the Ministry of Industry is reporting.

The latest musket production line of the Jiangnan Arsenal is completely ready for the conversion of production and can start mass production of flintlock pistols.

And the conversion of other major arsenals is also continuing.

Moreover, when the production line is modified, the production of various parts of the flintlock pistol has not stopped, so it is also hoarding a large number of parts of the flintlock pistol, and when the modified production line is completed, it can quickly burst out of the huge production capacity.

The Ministry of Industry estimates that next month, the output of flintlock pistols will reach 3,000 units in the arsenals under the Ministry of Industry of Datang combined.

After two months, this production will be able to climb to 4,000 pieces, and by next year, the output will stabilize at 5,000 pieces per month, and the annual output will reach 60,000 pieces.

However, even so, it is still far from enough for the Tang Army, Navy, and Guards Army, Navy, and Guards Army, which are getting bigger and bigger, and the need for refitting is very urgent at the same time, and they are still in wartime!